Compare And Contrast Spinoza And Rene Descartes

Throughout time both philosophers’ theories have ignited arguments when it comes to the conception of “substance.” Although both were around about the same time period, one heavily juxtaposed the other and criticized severely. At the end of the day both philosophers had an entire and total different idea of what substance was. To begin with, Descartes, divided the world into two kinds of substances. He divided it by the “res cogitas” and “res extensa,” which translates into “thinking substance, or mind and soul” and “extended substance, or body.” Afterwards, Descartes further divides substance into two more sections, “infinite thinking substance and finite thinking substance.” Descartes does not divide extended substance in two more sections as he claims that all extended substances are finite extended substances. As Descartes continues his meditation he claims that each finite thinking substance and
This means that this unique substance is neither mind nor body, rather it has an essence that makes it infinite. Since substance has an essence it can be conceived in infinite and radical ways. In other words, essence has a variety if essences and each can be conceived of in a certain way. In order to conceive essence, there must be an attribute. Attributes are exclusive and cannot overlap between two or more ways of conceiving the essence of substance. There are two attribute to essence, one of them is thinking and the other is extension. Extension can be explained as the face of the whole universe including our bodies, while thought can be explained in a more complex manner which categorizes ideas and ideas of an idea. For example, let’s think of a ball falling down from a building. There is an idea of the ball while at rest and same while it is moving. In some words every position of the ball while it is descending has its own idea (Dreher,